Kyra Elzy taught 'purpose and passion' to end the regular season

While Kentucky Women’s Basketball’s 11-19 (4-12) record left much to be desired, head coach Kyra Elzy said her team’s words are “purpose” and “passion.” Following the Cats’ regular season finale in Baton Rouge, Elzy commented on her team’s fight and never-ending effort. Although Kentucky fell to LSU 77-56, Elzy was still proud of her team, and made that very clear.

“We came into this game saying we had to have fight focus. Our two words we used to prepare for this game: purpose and passion. And I thought we came in and did that,” Elzy said. “We had a lot of fight in us, and we needed it.”

Despite the fact that Kentucky didn’t come away with a win, they did have fight, a common theme throughout the season. There hasn’t been a single instance where Kentucky has just given up. Even in the 98-32 loss to South Carolina earlier this season, players were still fighting to the end. While it’s frustrating for your team to not perform the way you want, it says a lot about an athlete to have that “never give up” mentality.

Kyra Elzy may not have performed my self-titled “Kentucky Basketball Gold Standard” we’re used to, but she’s coached a handful of great athletes that should be proud to call themselves a Wildcat.

To be the best, you have to play the best

It’s no secret that Kentucky Women’s Basketball struggled, badly this year. Two losing seasons in a row is not for the faint of heart, but Kyra Elzy has kept a positive attitude through it all. Unfortunately, a positive attitude doesn’t always win you games, but Elzy knows what will.

“You wanna play against the best in order to be the best,” Elzy said following the loss to LSU. “You gotta go up against the best. And they are. LSU is one of the standards. So proud of our team for our battle.”

The “battle,” Elzy mentioned is probably referring to many things. One in particular being the 13-2 run Kentucky went on to end the first half. The ‘Cats had cut LSU’s lead to only six after the second quarter, and did so with their heads held high. In fact, Kentucky outscored LSU 18-13 in the second quarter.

LSU head coach Kim Mulkey must’ve said something to get her players’ heads into gear, because the Tigers came out guns ablazing in the second half, and ultimately took the win.

Third quarter defensive woes

“I thought we scored our 13 on the run defensively. I thought in the third quarter, you know, we quit getting matched up in transition defense,” Elzy said. “Our post defense by our guards, I thought we let them [LSU] post us up way too easy. We should have been fronting… and the main thing was the turnovers in the middle of the floor.”

As a team, Kentucky finished with 23 turnovers, and the Tigers scored 26 points off of those. LSU, on the other hand, committed 15 turnovers, which the ‘Cats didn’t really capitalize off of. Kentucky scored 12 points from LSU’s miscues.

Kentucky was also disadvantaged in size, like Elzy said, having guards defend the post meant giving up paint points too easily. LSU scored 50 of their points in the paint, and didn’t even make a three pointer until late in the fourth quarter. The ‘Cats only scored 23 points in the paint and went 11-31 (35.4%) on layups.

Those 11 layups were exactly half of the shots Kentucky made from the field for the entire game. The ‘Cats went 22-62 (35.5%) from the field, including 6-15 (40%) from the perimeter. LSU was 31-69 (44.9%) from the field, and only 1-12 (8.3%) from three.

Say what you want about Kentucky Women’s Basketball, but those players are not quitters.

Up next for Kentucky is the SEC Tournament, which starts on Wednesday, March 6, and can be streamed on the SEC Network.